Telephone marketers may make telephone calls to a large number of telephone numbers in order to reach as many persons as possible. The telephone marketer may make such telephone calls manually (for example, a person manually dials each telephone number) or automatically (for example, an automatic dialer automatically dials each telephone number). When a person answers such a telephone call, the telephone marketer may play a pre-recorded message about a product or service. Typically, the person called has no interest in the product or service and views the telephone call as serving no legitimate purpose. In some cases, the person may even be charged by their telecommunications provider for receiving the telephone call.
To prevent the telephone marketer from calling again, the person may instruct their telecommunications provider that they do not wish to receive future telephone calls from the telephone marketer. The telecommunications provider may place the telephone marketer's telephone number on a blacklist that the telecommunications provider checks before routing telephone calls to the person.
Such blacklisting, however, does not work if the telephone marketer changes their telephone number. In such a case, the telephone marketer's new telephone number may not be on the telecommunications provider's blacklist. Such blacklisting also does not prevent the person from receiving telephone calls from other telephone marketers. Moreover, such blacklisting may not prevent other persons from receiving telephone calls from the telephone marketer.
The need exists for systems and methods that overcome the above problems, as well as provide additional benefits. Overall, the examples herein of some prior or related systems and their associated limitations are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of existing or prior systems will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon reading the following Detailed Description.